Galaxy S3 Android 4.3 update stopped, fix urgently needed

The past week has seen a lot of disgruntled smartphone owners that have received a new operating system arrive for their handset but upon installing it have been left with numerous problems, but now the Samsung Galaxy S3 Android 4.3 update has been stopped with a fix urgently needed to address the issues for those that have already installed the new software.

After being available for a few days over in Ireland for Vodafone owners of the Galaxy S3 the firmware reached the UK, but it quickly became apparent that the software was riddled with bugs. The Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update for the Galaxy S3 was briefly pulled and wasn’t available but strangely it soon started to rollout again.

Now though over the last few days we have been checking our unlocked GT-I9300 version of the Galaxy S3 and as you can see from the image at the bottom of this page we are now being told that the latest updates have already been installed.

Hundreds of users have contacted us and commented on previous articles about the issue, who have gone to having a perfectly respectable smartphone to something that hardly works at all. Many have been angry by the lack of information coming out of the company about the situation with no news about when a fix will be coming.

Many have been left having to remove the handsets battery to reboot the device to get it working again, which in many cases only provides a temporary fix and it’s lucky that the device has a removable battery in the first place.

The issues that have been troubling the Galaxy S3 with the Android 4.3 update has led us to speculate the same Android 4.3 firmware update for the Galaxy Note 2 would be delayed. The software for the Note 2 was recently seen at a Samsung service centre, and a recently leaked update schedule that has proved accurate so far has some versions of the device down to receive the firmware starting from November 20th but this is surely in doubt now.

Many have had issues with old downloads reappearing in the notification bar and more recently we have heard of complaints that the battery was getting rather hot. Besides the handset not responding to various actions via the home or power buttons, battery life on the smartphone has been seriously reduced.

Hopefully Samsung has a team of software engineers working around the clock to address the various problems affecting the Galaxy S3 Android 4.3 update, but until this fix is provided lots of owners will be left with what many are calling a useless lump of plastic.

Update: We have now found claims that Samsung is currently working on a fix for the problem and will release a stable version of the Android 4.3 update for the Galaxy S3 within 15 days time. There is currently no way of confirming this but if true you would have hoped the company would get it out sooner.

I wish I had read about the update before downloading it! I found a factory reset improved the lag slightly but I still have a multitude of issues such as:

Alarm clock completely random in it’s willingness to work.
All three gmail accounts are set to not use vibrate but they do anyway.
The lock screen no longer shows the sender of a new message it just says “new message recieved”.
The phone sometimes locks up and requires a battery pull.
Battery life is poor.

What worries me is I haven’t seen anyone else report on the gmail vibrating issue so I hope Samsung are aware of it!

jasper

I have the same issues as most, lock screen lag and battery life is poor, music stuttering, alarm didn’t work this morning, but not sure if that was my fault for not unchecking it in blocking mode.
@dave,
to enable the message option, open up messages, go to settings, scroll down almost to the bottom and see if Preview Message is ticked.
Sent 2 emails to Samsung support, 1st reply said do a reset, didn’t really help. see what their reply is to my second.

dave

That did tbe trick with the preview thanks! Now I can see when it’s the ex wife nagging me and not open it!

wayne

By installing a new launcher such as Nova launcher, then disabling all the apps that run in the background such as samsung hub etc, you should be able to have a device that works a bit better. I think the real problem is touchwiz and all its bloatware. Try to disable all the samsung apps and there should be some improvements.

royjames318

when are they going to release the stable version.any body knows.

David Valentine

In my haste to catch up with friends who have the S4, I manually downloaded a version of 4.3 for my S3 and regretted it within minutes!

Battery life was horrendous… lasted about 5 hours and most of that time the phone was sleeping. It wouldn’t wake up by pressing the power button or the home button so ended up having to hold the power button until the phone rebooted.

Apps were crashing and there was a strange security message about Wifi saying an unauthorised app has been blocked. There were no apps added except for the stock ones so Wifi had to be disabled to get rid of this constantly annoying message.

It seems Samsung have a LOT of work to do if this is going to work on the S3. Incidentally the Wifi issue also affects the S4 as a friend is experiencing.

I have now returned to 4.1.2 and am error-free

Jamie

how did you revert to 4.1.2 buddy i need to do the same

David Valentine

Jamie… have replied but it’s being moderated as I’ve put a link in the answer. Hopefully they’ll let it through

Neil

Hey David, can you throw that link my way also? This expensive paperweight is driving me nuts!?

MSS

Flash 4.1.2 using Odin. Do it at your own risk as done wrong will brick your phone.

mooseolly

stop, do not downgrade first. When you flash 4.3, your /efs partition is modified to a new format. Suppose if you reflash with an older rom such as 4.1.2, your imei will not be recognizable and this means you cannot make your calls/sms/gprs. Bear with the faulty rom for awhile.

Tim.Fitzpatrick

How did you “return to 4.1.2″, David? I’m having nothing but problems with my phone, including not receiving incoming phone calls, since I upgraded to 4.3.

David Valentine

Hi Tim, I replied to Jamie earlier also which includes a link with step by step instructions but am waiting for the moderators to allow it on here. Hopefully it’ll show soon. Basically you need to find the UK version of 4.1.2, download it, then install a free program called Odin. This is the program that will flash your phone and reinstall the version of Android you downloaded previously. If you go ahead and do it, let me know if you run into any problems (I had a reboot loop issue but it was easy to solve – take the battery out!) Cheers

dgscoob2000

Hi mate any chance u can email me the link so I can down grade? Did u have any issues getting signal after going bk?

Weird, tried the same, went into the same boot loop issue, but nothing would solve it. I removed the battery, reflashed again, nothing would help, I though I had bricked it. I then re-installed 4.3 and it worked again. I did not re-install many of my usual apps (FB, Whatsapp, etc) and so far it works much better than the first time around. The battery lasts now the same as when I was with 4.1.2 (vs 8hMAX with my first try on 4.3) and I have far less problems with slow wake up. I’ll try to add apps one by one to see what’s triggering the problem.

dgscoob2000

boot loop fix mate is put it into recovery mode after 4.1.2 has installed, do a wipe data reset, then a cache wipe, then reboot and its fixed 100% just done mine, i can email anyone the links required for software AT YOUR OWN RISK, BUT IF DONE LIKE INSTRUCTIONS SAY IT WORKS, S3 BACK ON 4.1.2

arwa

may i please have an email with the link to down grade, this new update is rubbish. many thanks!
my email is: [email protected]

dgscoob2000

all good with info u gave me dave, boot loop but the fix is put it in recovery mode do a wipe then a cache wipe, the select reboot and it will then turn on no probs you must do this to delete old files off 4.3 which arent needed

David Valentine

Excellent! Glad it worked for you. Yeah I got the boot loop but as you say, easy to fix. It’s a relief to be back on 4.1.2!

Quenteragus

How to find the UK version?

Dhanraj

Update 4.3 not available in India… I recently updated to 4.1.2 and after updating the battery is draining like a hell… it works for only 4 hrs…!!! :/

Tired of Samsung

Samsung makes horrendous software.

I think the S3 is a wonderful handset, but unfortunately Samsung has very consistently been unable to match the quality (IMO) of the hardware with good software. The inexcusable quality of the 4.3 update was the last straw for me, pushing me to finally check out Cyanogenmod.

Although the custom ROM isn’t perfect, the basic functioning of my phone has even improved with respect to the stable Samsung 4.1.2 OS.

I really like my S3, but I doubt it if my next phone will be a Samsung.

smp

Terrible…phone not functioning.

adchesney

Had nothing but problems since upgrading. In fact the phone is almost useless as a phone! It is shameful on the part of Samsung.

JJ

Have now moved fro Samsung because of this and I’m now the owner of a Sony Experia Z1.I was going to upgrade to the S4. You lost me Samsung!

Graham

Perform a back up and then do a factory reset, this has cured 99 percent of the problems I experienced with my S3. The phone is now so much quicker and responsive than before although it still sometimes takes a couple of seconds to turn on.

Alexander Usov

Unfortunately factory reset doesn’t really help.
New firmware still drains battery like crazy, and has to be rebooted every day.

MSS

After 4.3 update of my GS3’s

-Battery life was AWFUL – drained over night
-Music player stutters/lags when screen is off
-Dreadful lag when trying to wake the phone
-And daily battery pulls.

Am flashing back to 4.1.2 -_-

Sachin Upadhayay

yes same problem i too facing ,,is there any fix for them

Logan Gordon

That’s why I’m on 4.4 for the sgh i535 love rooting

cm_swagger

amen brother at least cyanogenmod has no probs right?

Augustine White

Im not rooted own a tmobile galaxy s3 and received the 4.3 update ota this morning!! Im loving the 4.3 si far no issues

ADR

I disabled the auto brightness feature and that seemed to really help my phone after having similar problems when upgrading to 4.3

Zulu

I have not upgraded my S3 yet. Just got notified of the upgrade yesterday 19 Dec. Has anyone upgraded recently with no issues?